


Break Me

by Sarahvampgrl



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Season/Series 06, Season/Series 07
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 07:51:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11226558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarahvampgrl/pseuds/Sarahvampgrl
Summary: Post two to go through season 7Spike gets his soul back and is coming back to Sunnydale but two forces impede and aid him, FE and FS. Buffy reaches out in her dreams trying to discover Spike who she desparately wants to talk to.





	1. Chapter 1

Buffy patrolled through the graveyard. Nothing new. Nothing different. Just a night. Like most other nights. A vamp leaned in the darkness. See? Nothing new. His hand snapped into the light with a smooth flick of his wrist. He was twirling a yo-yo. You don't always see that.

"Ooh, do I get one? Looks so fun." Buffy asked with mock innocence.

The vamp laughed. Definitely new. They didn't usually get her jokes. Quips. Whatever.

"You should be careful who you play games with, little girl," the vampire said, still idly twirling the bright yellow yo-yo.

"Oh, it's you," Buffy said, scrunching her nose. Why hadn't she known?

The vampire pushed off the monument and stepped more fully into the gray moonlight. The familiar curl to his lip, the unnatural light blond hair, all just the same. So why did he seem so different.

"Yeah. Me. Good ole Spike," he said, stepping closer to her, that panthery prowl in the dip and step of his body. Definitely very familiar.

"Well, good," Buffy said because she couldn't think of anything else to say. He'd been gone for a month now and she'd tried not to admit to herself that she missed him. She lost track of her brain for a second as a steamy image of what she really missed jolted through her head. She jerked herself out of it as quickly as she could but his eyes narrowed nonetheless. Sometimes it was like he could read her mind and his....differentness....was throwing her off.

He reached out toward her. She didn't pull back. Her lips tightened in denial but she didn't pull back. He ran his hand down her cheek and his face was reverent, as if it was truly the first time. She opened her mouth to deny him. Shut him down. Cold turkey. But her voice came out more tremulous than needed to accomplish the goal. Her voice kind of tripped over the word as she said, "Spike..."

"Buffy," he answered. More acknowledged, actually, as his voice came from an equally emotional place in his throat.

She opened her mouth again. Cold turkey. Clean break. "I missed you," she said, her face scrunched on the breathless verge of tears.

His voice broke on a choked laugh. "As often as I thought of coming back," he paused, looking into her eyes and letting his hand slide up from her cheek to bury a little deeper in her hair, "I hardly imagined you saying that. Although I did imagine a lot of things. Did you?"

This was dangerous ground. Buffy knew that. Knew it like she knew she was the Slayer. "I didn't imagine you coming back." That was cold. That was good. And it was true. She'd missed him like an ache in her chest but she'd also thought it best. Kind of pictured him falling off the edge of the world. That would have been best for her.

Spike sucked in the tiniest breath, his face closing just a bit. "I told you it was your calling," he said with a twisted smile.

"What?" Buffy asked, only half-confused.

"Nothing, it doesn't matter anymore," Spike said softly and there was a fierceness in his eyes she'd seen before. So often in those last months. When her need had consumed her. When she'd found her steps veering to his crypt every night just to see that look again as he'd bury himself inside her and....No. She had to stop thinking. Had to stop remembering. Had to convince her feet to step back and take her out of his grip.

"Spike," she said again, an ounce of control seeping into her voice.

"It doesn't matter because I am back, Buffy," he continued, cutting off the denial he saw forming.

"But it's still the same, Spike," she said, reaching up to grab his hand and pull it away from her cheek but only managing to lightly clasp it.

"No. It's not," he said and dipped his head as he grasped the nape of her neck and pulled her a little forward. His lips touched hers and she was sunk. She hadn't felt his lips in what felt like too long a time. She kissed him back. Passionately. This was the one place she couldn't quite deny him totally. He pulled her close and her body sang like Jimmy Hendrix's guitar would only sing for Jim.

She was intrinsically the slayer when she was in his arms. The power and the thrill of the slayer, the primal force, poured into their lovemaking....wait, no, their sex. Best to always remember, compartmentalize, keep her sanity. And it had been too long. She felt the power like an explosion inside her as she grasped her hands into his clothes. Which were different. Part of the overall differentness about him. He wore a soft gray, long-sleeved shirt that did wonderful things for the blue of his eyes and the lines of his chest. She didn't know why she expected him to be wearing his duster. It was up in her closet. She'd occasionally even taken it out and sniffed it. But only when the house was empty and she was very tired.

She pushed back and they tumbled backwards. His arms went around her waist and caught her to him as he fell. The little string of the yo-yo broke and rolled a few yards away. Maybe she hadn't expected them to fall together. Maybe she'd just meant to shove him away. She didn't know anymore as she looked down into his eyes. Maybe he saw the confusion, uncertainty, uncontrolled desire there. Maybe even he knew it wasn't right. Not like this. Either way he just wrapped his arms more tightly around her, guiding her head to cuddle into his shoulder, and they were both content to feel the other's arms again. Buffy closed her eyes.

And when she opened them she was hugging a pillow to her chest in her bedroom. The late morning light filtered in slants across the bed and she groaned as the dream lingered around her warm and tingling body. Her closet door was open and her eyes went to it. She couldn't help it. There was his black leather duster nestled among her fashionable, although slightly behind the fashion, clothes. She didn't let her mind drift farther than the duster. Not to wonder where he was, what he was doing, or why she might even remotely care. And definitely not why she desperately wanted to feel his arms again.


	2. From the Other Side

As Buffy tossed the pillow to the floor and strode from her room, Spike awoke with a gasp an ocean away. He lay in a little hut with coarse blankets strung around his corner. The sky had begun to darken outside his well protected refuge and he peeked out. Not quite dark enough. He leaned back and pulled out a cigarette, lighting the tip with nonchalant ease.

His eyes narrowed as he looked out the window. He wasn't ready to see her again. Everything was just too new. And he'd admit it. He was afraid. Now that it was done, now that the anger and fire that had fueled him was gone, he was deeply afraid of what would happen when he saw her again. There had been so much badness between them when he left and his only thought had been to change it. Change the world, himself, make her face it. Now he felt new and raw and sore and it hurt too much to think of what she might say.

 

'You'll never be good enough,' her lip curled in disgust. He knew it wasn't really her sitting there next to him. It was just part of the price he'd paid for the spark in him. He was bloody insane now. 

 

He shut his eyes tight at the mental picture of the real her and not this evil beside him. His soul inside him was like an amplifier, every emotion torture, and it had been torture enough before.

A dark-skinned woman came in holding a bucket of water in one hand and a flailing chicken in the other. There was a tinge of fear in her black eyes, but a proud erectness to her tall, slimly muscular body. Spike pushed the blanket aside and stepped into the shadows of the hut.

"Bokas sent word to feed you," the woman said in a strong, melodious accent. Spike's jaw tightened. He could picture the glowing eye-d bugger laughing at him now. A bloody poncy soul. Like he didn't have enough grief in his life. Unlife.

"Sounds good," Spike said evenly, wondering exactly what that would entail, his eyes trailing involuntarily to the supple line of her throat.

The woman walked over to a rough table. A brown cup was already out. She set the bucket in the corner and pulled out a large curved knife from the folds of her skirt. With a quick swish she sliced the squawking chicken's head off. It rolled into the corner as it's wings still beat ferociously and warm blood poured over her hand. She held the chicken upside down over the cup and let the red blood flow into it. When the last trickle had stopped she flung the chicken into the bucket and plunged in her hands to rinse off the fresh blood.

He'd had more appetizing meals. But he was also very hungry. He licked his lips. He sat down and took the cup. Still warm, hot even. He gulped back half the cup and made a small face. The woman sat down across from him and gave him a stern look, "Chicken blood is all you'll get here, beast," she said, but her voice did strange things to the last word, fear and something else passing through her eyes.

He'd been so wrapped up in Buffy it was almost a shock to see that look. Especially from this strange woman whose hut he had stumbled into after leaving the cave.

He'd passed out after the demon had ensouled him. The next few weeks were a blur. He'd been in and out of consciousness, sometimes a hand would appear with a bowl of blood, always cold. He'd drink it down greedily before falling back into darkness. He dreamt mainly those first weeks. Victims and events flashed in disjointed memory and sometimes there would be Buffy in the chaos and darkness like a shining light. Moonlight. Velvet. Golden moonlight.

But then he'd woken one morning and wanted her. Needed her. So he'd dragged himself to his feet and limped stiffly from the cave, his jaw clenched, his eyes shining with anger, pride, and something that looked like it wanted to be tears. The demon had chuckled as he passed. "Goodbye, Spike," he'd said in a gravelly voice. "Be careful..." and there was a smile hidden in the words. Spike had gotten the joke. He didn't find it funny. Be careful what you wish for. "bugger," he muttered and left the cave forever. He'd planned to go straight to her but he had been weak and battered in body and, for the first time in a long time, soul.

So he had walked out into the night, stiff and tired, a strange ache in the region of his heart, and a vomity feeling in the area of his gut. But he'd made a major error in time zones and sunrises when he'd felt the first tingle of approaching dawn. The little hut was on the outskirts of the village and he'd barged in, hoping there wasn't any big guy with an axe or petite blondes with stakes. There hadn't been. He'd collapsed in the corner and hadn't woken for two days.

"What am I now? Am I still a monster?" Spike muttered, his voice introspective, a tortured laugh in the words.

"You'll always have a beast," the woman said matter-of-factly. She shrugged. "But it could be worse. You could be an ugly beast." And there was that something again. Fascination, desire. It was stimulating, intriguing, and nothing even close to Buffy. But then nothing ever was. Not since the first time he'd laid eyes on her in the alley beside The Bronze. She nodded to the open doorway and the dusk beyond. "It'll be dark soon. Will you be leaving, then?"

Spike gazed out at the deepening dark of the sky. Then he turned his eyes to her, the burning passion of the blue spearing her.

The woman smiled slowly. Definite invitation. Spike heard and understood. Apparently this village didn't mind the beasts it harbored so close. He gulped down the last of the hot blood, feeling it tingle and zing through his body, silencing the hungry growl of his stomach. 

He stood and stepped out into the night. He looked back at the girl. "Thank you but I have to go. I have to see someone." It was intriguing. It was nice. To be wanted. To have a warm body welcoming him in the night. But he'd been down that road. He grimaced at the thought of Anya. He stopped dead still in the white sand. But that hadn't stopped him before. His hand went to his heart, the dull throb that felt as if it were the new seat of his soul.

He felt freer, looser in some ways. The chaos of his love had settled behind this new feeling. But there was a bright anger as well. The lingering anger that had carried him to Africa still ached in him. The all-consuming urge to run back and throw it in her face. 'You thought I'd never be good enough. Man enough. But Peaches had his soul and now I got mine. What do you have to say to that? Do you see what I've done for you? What you've done to me?'

"I know what you're thinking," said a voice, sweet and stern, a little California accent, a voice he loved. A voice that could stir him so deep it scraped. "Is that really what you want to say to me?" 

It wasn't her. It wasn't Buffy. Her feet left no print beside his as she followed him across the desert. He just had to stay strong and push through. 

But it was secondary now. To just being in his own skin. Feeling the parts that had been William awaken and merge into the parts that had become Spike. And all the while the feeling of his demon, something integral, sliding back. Leaving this hole where there had been certainty. Certainty that he was evil. Certainty of himself as Spike. A certainty that begun to dim a long time ago. As if the place for his soul had been building all the time he'd been loving her. He groaned and buried his face in his hands. It was just too much. He just wanted to fall asleep and dream again. Even if it was the nightmares.

He crested a hill. A gnarled tree curled it's branches in a flattened scape against the sky. He walked beneath the branches of this tree that seemed as old as the world itself. He was coming home.


End file.
